Salary: £35,608 to £37,694 with progression to £46,049 per annum
Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.
Closing Date: 16 September 2025
The Role
The Senior Organisational Development (OD) Advisor will contribute professional expertise to a focused project aimed at contextualising and enhancing psychological safety within our research community, supporting a culture of innovation and collaboration. The aim of the project is to develop and pilot contextualised, sustainable and scalable leadership development approaches and interventions that build leadership practices and behaviours, promoting psychological safety.
The role sits within a trans-disciplinary team comprising both professional services and academics, engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders throughout the research community. The role supports the OD project Lead and has strong links to the wider OD Team and other priority projects within the University. The successful candidate will need to understand the broader organisational aims and foster a highly collaborative approach to ensure the project compliments and supports these.
The role has no accountability for staff but works at a relatively senior level, responsible for self-direction and delivery of results, with the ability to work with minimum supervision.
If you have any questions, please reach out to Katie.Gray@newcastle.ac.uk.
This role is fixed term for 12 months.
Key Accountabilities
* Support the assessment of current state of psychological safety within targeted research teams through appropriate tools
* Use research findings to co-create, pilot and evaluate tailored interventions to address identified gaps and promote a psychologically safe and inclusive environment
* Facilitate workshops and training sessions on psychological safety and related topics
* Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, making adjustments as needed
* Collaborate with OD and leadership, using evidence gathered, to support integration of psychological safety principles into organisational policies and practices
* Collaborate with the recognition and reward element of the project to help create a values based recognition system to support practice change among participants piloting the leadership development intervention
* Creation of appropriate materials, such as facilitator guides and team-based resources to support the long-term development of psychologically safe and inclusive research cultures
The Person
Knowledge, Skills and Experience
* Knowledge of culture change, leadership development and organisational culture theory and frameworks and application of these theories and frameworks in practice
* Knowledge of practices to support culture change processes such as coaching, facilitating team development, reflective practice, facilitating diversity, inclusion and belonging
* Experience of designing and delivering organisational development and/or learning interventions, ideally focused on leadership behaviour
* Skilled in facilitating group process, group dialogues and adult learning approaches
* Demonstrable track record of delivering projects to agreed standards, on time and within budget
* Continued professional development through maintaining an awareness of the latest developments and best practice within your professional area and how these could be applied
* Data analysis skills with ability to use metrics and data to support critical thinking and improvement of processes or services
Desirable
* Experience of working in higher education
Attributes and Behaviours
* Credibility and presence when working with groups
* Works proactively, collaboratively and in partnership with others
* Promotes and actively drives change
* Excellent communicator, both verbal and written
* Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail
* Ability to persuade, convince and influence others in order to achieve results
* Active advocate and role model for equality, diversity and inclusion
* Displays enthusiasm, integrity and personal resilience
Qualifications
* Qualifications in any of the following areas – Leadership development, Learning and development, Human Resources, Organisational Development, Occupational Psychology
Desirable
* A qualification in Coaching
* A Project Management or Change Management qualification
* Chartered member of CIPD or equivalent work experience
Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.
We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society. We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.
At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality. We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC. We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.
In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe.
Requisition ID: 28509